Fortress Rabaul (53 page)

Unfortunately, Tsunoda was unable to keep his promise to watch over Matsunaga. The following day, nineteen pilots of Air Group 582 were assigned to escort dive bombers on a mission against the new American base in the Russell Islands. Tsunoda led the first
chutai
and expected to have Matsunaga with him, but at the last minute Matsunaga was ordered to lead the second
chutai
, an assignment he willingly accepted despite his prior concerns. During the approach to the Russells, a gaggle of F4U Corsairs attacked Matsunaga’s side of the formation. He charged at them singlehandedly, leaving the rest of the Zeros to protect the bombers. Tsunoda watched in dismay as his friend raced headlong toward the American fighters, knowing instinctively that Matsunaga would not return.
*

The chronic health concerns and high death toll affected virtually all of the airmen. Petty Officer Igarashi wrote in his diary: “Generally speaking, our morale is low. This is hardly to be helped. We have had rough lives at the front for nearly a year. I understand this, but yet, where have the elite of the ocean gone? Where are the true crack units?”

The answer to Igarashi’s rhetorical question was provided by Tokyo. On March 15, Imperial General Headquarters introduced a new plan called the Joint Army-Navy Central Agreement on Southeast Area
Operations, which directed the establishment of “a superior and impregnable strategic position.” Pretentious language aside, the plan was clearly defensive in nature. The great Southern Offensive was dead. In its place, Tokyo implored the army and navy to “literally operate as one unit” while maintaining pressure on Allied forces in New Guinea. Simultaneously, the defenses at Rabaul and its satellite bases were to be strengthened.

The sole offensive element of the plan, buried several paragraphs deep in the document, directed the Imperial Navy to initiate an air campaign against Allied positions in the Solomon Islands—essentially a counterattack on Guadalcanal. It was to be accomplished by means of “aerial supremacy combat, interception of enemy transportation, interception of enemy aircraft, ground support, and covering lines of communications and supply.” The task fell to Yamamoto, who was well aware that the Allies were developing Guadalcanal, along with bases in the New Hebrides, in order to advance up the Solomons.

In fact, the first push had already been made. On February 21, only two weeks after the Japanese pulled their troops out of Guadalcanal, American forces had advanced seventy miles to the northeast and peacefully occupied the Russell Islands. Seabees immediately began to bulldoze a pair of airstrips to support Admiral Halsey’s multilateral air force for the next campaign, the invasion of New Georgia.

The Japanese would find no shortage of tempting targets on Guadalcanal, or in the surrounding anchorages. During the few short weeks since they had conceded the island, it had undergone dramatic changes. Now boasting three busy airstrips, Guadalcanal had become a supply depot with massive dumps of munitions, fuel, weapons, and other war materiel piled high. Japanese reconnaissance flights on March 25 revealed approximately three hundred Allied planes on the island, and the snoopers counted numerous transports, cargo ships, and warships riding at anchor between Lunga Point and Tulagi.

Knowing that the Eleventh Air Fleet by itself was incapable of mounting an effective strike, Yamamoto called upon Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa, commander of the Third Fleet, to contribute his carrier air groups to the effort.
Zuikaku
and
Zuiho
were already in the vicinity, and
Hiyo
and
Junyo
joined them from Japan on March 27. Ozawa initially voiced opposition to the use of his elite units, but he eventually provided the aircraft and
even agreed to supervise plans for the coming operation. At about this same time, it was decided that both Yamamoto and Ozawa should shift their headquarters temporarily to Rabaul, underscoring the vital role of the fortress in Japan’s latest strategy.

Yamamoto scheduled his arrival for April 3. In the meantime, Vice Admiral Kusaka sent a preliminary fighter sweep down “the Slot” on April 1, hoping to draw out and destroy a large percentage of the Allied fighters at Guadalcanal. The mission consisted of two separate waves of land-based Zeros from Air Groups 204 and 253, the first consisting of thirty-two Zekes and Haps, the second containing twenty-five fighters. Both waves were detected by coastwatchers, whose radio warnings gave Fighter Command on Guadalcanal enough time to scramble forty-two fighters. Most were marine or navy F4F Wildcats, but there were also six P-38 Lightnings and several new gull-winged F4U Corsairs, which had seen their first combat only two months earlier.

The raiders were intercepted over the Russell Islands, starting a giant melee that lasted nearly three hours. Of the ninety-nine aircraft involved, fifteen were shot down. The Americans enjoyed a distinct advantage in fighting over their own territory. Although five Wildcats and a Corsair were shot down, three of the pilots survived to fight again. Conversely, the Japanese lost the pilots of all nine Zeros brought down, in part because few, if any, wore a parachute.

The reports submitted by both sides were exaggerated, but not evenly so. The Americans claimed eighteen Zeros destroyed, exactly twice as many as the Japanese actually lost. Conversely, the Japanese bragged of shooting down forty-seven American fighters, a whopping total that exceeds the number of participating aircraft.

ADMIRAL YAMAMOTO was undoubtedly pleased with the reports from the returning Zero pilots, even if he suspected their claims were inflated. Still at Truk, he indulged in a game of
shōgi
with his liaison officer, Cmdr. Shigeru Fujii, on his last night aboard
Musashi. (Sh!gi
is a popular Japanese variation of chess; the literal translation is “general’s board game.”) While discussing the impending trip, Yamamoto confided: “It seems there’s a lot of talk at home lately about commanders leading their own troops into battle, but to tell the truth I’m not very keen on going to Rabaul. I’d be much happier if they were sending me back to Hashirajima.”

Yamamoto’s statement had nothing to do with shirking his duties; instead it was based purely on human nature. Away from Japan for almost eight months, he longed to see his mistress, Chiyoko Kawai. For the past nine years, Yamamoto had loved the former geisha “with the freshness of spirit of a far younger man.” Their relationship had been kept carefully hidden, so he had to be content with writing her a letter about his forthcoming trip to Rabaul. Contrary to the comments he made while playing
shōgi
, Yamamoto expressed to Kawai his happiness “at the chance to do something.”

On the morning of April 3, the day before his fifty-ninth birthday, Yamamoto and several members of his staff boarded a pair of four-engine flying boats in Truk lagoon. As a precaution, he and Vice Admiral Ugaki occupied different aircraft. In the unlikely event that one of the planes went down, the Combined Fleet Staff would not lose both of its top admirals. As it was, the big seaplanes encountered no trouble and landed in Simpson Harbor at 1340. The greeting party included Vice Admiral Kusaka, who had not seen his commander in chief for six months. Kusaka noticed that Yamamoto had bloodshot eyes and seemed on the verge of exhaustion. Years later, American writer John Prados suggested that the cause might have been beriberi, a fairly common disease in the tropics caused by acute vitamin deficiency.

Yamamoto and his staff were escorted to Southeast Fleet Headquarters, where the Combined Fleet flag was raised to signify the temporary relocation of his headquarters. After a brief visit, Yamamoto was taken to his personal quarters, a cottage at Government House on Namanula Hill, “where the nights would be cool.”

The next day Yamamoto, Ozawa, and Kusaka went over the details of “Attack X,” the strike against Guadalcanal, scheduled for April 5. Ozawa’s carrier planes—an impressive force of 96 Zeros, 54 Vals, and a few Kate torpedo bombers—had arrived on April 2, bringing the total number of attack aircraft at Rabaul to approximately 350.

With such a large and powerful force at his disposal, Yamamoto believed he could seriously hurt the Allies in New Guinea as well as in the lower Solomons. He therefore decided to add a series of strikes against New Guinea to the overall plan, officially named A-Operation, or
I-Go Sakusen
in Japanese. The recent Central Agreement formulated by Imperial General Headquarters provided ample justification for the additional
raids, because it had included the following directive: “Air operations will be intensified to destroy the enemy air strength [on New Guinea].”

Attack X was postponed for two days due to bad weather, but the early hours of April 7 found Yamamoto at Lakunai airdrome to observe the departure of the massed aerial forces. Wearing a dress white uniform, he solemnly waved his cap as scores of Zeros and dive-bombers roared aloft. Dozens more took off from Vunakanau, and several hours later most of the attack force landed either at Buin, on the south coast of Bougainville, or on the tiny island of Ballale, fifteen miles off the Bougainville coast. While the planes were being refueled, the crews received updated target and weather information. Taking off again for the attack phase of the mission, they rejoined over Shortland Island, and at midday the main force of 110 Zeros and 67 Vals turned southeast toward Guadalcanal. A separate group of 47 Zeros from the Eleventh Air Fleet took off from Buka and also headed southeast. Altogether some 224 planes, the largest Japanese strike force since the attack on Pearl Harbor, set off for Guadalcanal.

THANKS TO AN experienced and talented intelligence network, the Allies received several warnings of the impending raid. First, intercepted Japanese radio traffic was analyzed at Pacific Fleet Headquarters in Hawaii, which then issued alerts back to Guadalcanal more than three hours before the attack commenced. Later, Australian coastwatchers transmitted reports of visual sightings to Guadalcanal, enabling Fighter Command to scramble seventy-six fighters from Henderson Field and the outlying airstrips, Fighter One and Fighter Two. The outcome was a massive donnybrook that began at midafternoon southeast of the Russell Islands and spread all the way to the anchorage at Tulagi. Despite the early detection, the Japanese bought extra time by cleverly splitting the attack force into four groups, which created initial confusion among the Allied radar controllers.

The first American fighters to reach the Japanese—divisions of F4F Wildcats from three Marine Corps squadrons—had to fend off Zeros and were unable to prevent the Vals from attacking targets in Tulagi anchorage. Consequently three ships were sunk: a destroyer that had fought at Pearl Harbor, a small New Zealand corvette, and a fat tanker of 14,500 tons. In addition, a converted oiler that had been refueling the corvette was badly damaged.

Among the many individual air battles that raged overhead, one stands out. James E. Swett, a marine first lieutenant in VMF-221, was officially credited with shooting down seven Vals and probably destroying an eighth; this in an F4F-4 that, due to its limited ammunition, offered only eighteen seconds’ worth of firing time. Swett’s own fighter was damaged and he was wounded, all of which led to a bone-jarring forced landing in Tulagi harbor. Swett escaped from the sinking Wildcat and was later awarded a Medal of Honor for his feat, which was accepted without question at the time. In recent years, however, as historians have collated extensive details of the battle, including analysis of Japanese documentation, some have concluded that Swett could not possibly have downed all of the bombers attributed to him.

Another element of the battle worth noting is the participation of two American brothers whose lives are deeply entwined in the Rabaul story. Both were division leaders on April 7. Captain Thomas P. Lanphier Jr. of the 339th Fighter Squadron led four P-38s into the fray and personally claimed three Zeros. His younger brother, 1st Lt. Charles C. Lanphier, shot down one Zero while leading four Wildcats from VMF-214. It was a good outing for the brothers. Their father, a former commanding officer of the Army Air Corps’ fabled 1st Pursuit Squadron, served as Gen. “Hap” Arnold’s air intelligence officer and counted men such as Charles Lindbergh among his good friends. For his fighter-pilot sons, the future seemed bright indeed.

AFTER THE FIGHT broke up, most of the surviving Vals and Zeros headed back toward Bougainville. Some with battle damage or low fuel landed at Munda Point on New Georgia, and a few were forced to ditch. Predictably, both sides submitted exaggerated reports. Over-claiming again by a ratio of approximately two-to-one, the Americans were credited with shooting down twenty-six Zeros and thirteen Vals, whereas actual Japanese losses totaled twelve Zeros and nine Vals either shot down or missing, with another three dive-bombers ditched or crash-landed. By comparison, the Japanese over-claimed by a ratio of at least six-to-one, reporting forty-one American planes destroyed (plus thirteen damaged or uncertain), though only seven Wildcats were lost with all pilots recovered.

The biggest embellishments were made by the dive-bomber crews. The returning aviators claimed that they had sunk twelve major vessels (ten
transports, a cruiser, and a destroyer), heavily damaged two additional transports, and caused minor damage to yet another. The results were forwarded to Imperial General Headquarters, and highly sensationalized accounts of the battle were soon being published throughout Japan.

Convinced that the attack had achieved everything the airmen claimed, Yamamoto and the Combined Fleet Staff proceeded with Attack Operation Y, a series of raids against bases on New Guinea. The first, conducted on April 11, did not involve the Eleventh Air Fleet’s land-based bombers. Instead, one hundred planes from Ozawa’s carrier groups independently attacked Oro Bay, adjacent to the rapidly expanding airdrome complex at Dobodura.

Considering the number of aircraft involved (seventy-three Zeros, twenty-seven Vals), the results were surprisingly modest. Against the loss of two Zeros and four Vals, the Japanese claimed the sinking of three transports and a destroyer. However, only one American cargo vessel was actually sunk, while a second transport sustained enough damage to warrant beaching it. An Australian minesweeper, evidently mistaken for a destroyer, was also damaged.